Macklemore brought his Free Palestine Tour to Paris on Thursday for its second stop, sharing the stage with Aurora, Portugal. The Man, DJ Habibeats, Pomme, Redvell, Siba, Tamer Nafar, Xiuhtezcatl Martinez and Zeyne. The run began after he was removed from Ed Sheeran's stadium tour over onstage statements supporting Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, a turn ROMBO followed as Sheeran's own tour was collapsing.
The Paris show sold out. Aurora performed "The Seed," from her third album, A Different Kind of Human (Step 2). Between sets, Macklemore addressed the room, describing the lineup as artists and speakers gathered "with one common goal, which is a free Palestine." He went further: "You cannot erase a people's history by ignoring it," and, of the past three years of news, "we've all seen a live-streamed genocide in the palm of our hand." The language was plainer than anything he has said from a stage on this run.
The set list leaned on his own catalog and his collaborations. He performed Rudimental's "These Days," the 2018 single that paired him with Jess Glynne and Dan Caplen; the official video is below, a reminder that his pop instincts have long run through other people's records.
Rudimental - These Days (feat. Jess Glynne, Macklemore & Dan Caplen) [Official Video]
During "Can't Hold Us," from The Heist, he jumped the barricade at the bridge and was briefly lifted above the crowd while green and red confetti, the colors of the Palestinian flag, fell over the floor. The gesture is worth noting less for the spectacle than for the choice of song: a decade-old crossover hit turned into a moment of physical proximity with an audience that came for a cause as much as a concert. The tour continues with that same question hanging over each date, how a charity bill with this many names holds a room's attention between speeches and songs.
For Macklemore, the stakes are already set: he lost a stadium support slot and built a tour in its place. Paris suggests the model works. What remains is whether the message outlasts the news cycle that produced it.
